'This Week' Transcript: O'Donnell and Coons

AMANPOUR: So to discuss all of this, I'm joined now by our
roundtable, with George Will; Meghan McCain, the daughter of Senator
John McCain, who recently published "Dirty Sexy Politics," her own take
on the future of her party; political analyst Matthew Dowd; and ABC
"Nightline" co-anchor Terry Moran.

Thank you all for being here.

Has the Tea Party gone one step too far with Christine O'Donnell? I
mean, this was a safe Republican seat.

WILL: Presumably, and they probably did. But I don't think that's
going to make the difference between controlling the Senate or not. And
the Senate -- the story of the Senate is already written in stone, and
that is that Mitch McConnell is going to have 47, 48 Senate seats, which
means he's going to have 41 votes for anything, which means nothing
shall pass that he doesn't want to pass.

AMANPOUR: Matthew, do you think that that's right? Because
everybody there was saying the Republicans would have to look elsewhere
to get a seat to gain control of the Senate.

DOWD: Well, obviously, this is -- if you're wanting to win,
Christine O'Donnell does not help that cause. Any time you run an ad
that says "I am not witch," you know you've got problems in a campaign,
even if it's Halloween this month.

But I think the real thing here that she has identified is that
there's a huge passion in this country right now, that's a lot of anger
and a lot of frustration. It's not helpful that she got nominated, but
she is evidence that that is not going away. And the only party
benefiting from this in this year's election is the Republican Party,
which is probably why they will take the House back, which is why
they'll probably gain seven or eight seats in the Senate, even if they
lose Delaware, because they have the passion and enthusiasm behind them.

AMANPOUR: And what about -- a lot of sort of things are coming up
just this week, sort of some of the unvetted -- like she. She was an
unvetted, untested -- although she's run now three times for the Senate,
things with Joe Miller, things with West (ph). Do you think that that
is a risk for the Tea Party movement, that there are these personal
issues that are coming up?

DOWD: Well, I think that it's just like (inaudible) to passion.
And they're like crime of passion, that in the aftermath you think,
"Maybe I shouldn't have done that." But in this -- in the middle of a
time when the country is so angry at Washington, they don't want the
Democrats, they turn to candidates that are so outside that many of
those candidates are either nuts or are somewhat off or not competent.

But in the end, if you had to switch places with the Democratic
Party or the Republican Party, the Democrats would switch places with
the Republicans in a minute if they could in this year's election cycle.

MORAN: In the election. After the election, the vetting, that's
when it's going to happen in some ways. It's going to be Mitch
McConnell who's going to find out exactly what these new senators from
this movement believe, what they will do to the Republican conference in
the Senate, and I think that's the real challenge happening.

AMANPOUR: You said "nuts." And, you know, as you know, Karl Rove
said that Christine O'Donnell has been saying some nutty things. And
then he got the sort of FOX-Beck-Palin bandwagon, and he quickly came
back into line. I saw you just as we were looking at that piece, sort
of holding your head in your hands. What is your view on where the
Republican Party and the Tea Party is right now?

MCCAIN: Well, I speak as a 26-year-old woman. And my problem is
that, no matter what, Christine O'Donnell is making a mockery of running
for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind
of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can
just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how lack of experience you
have.

And it scares me for a lot of reasons, and I just know (inaudible)
it just turns people off, because she's seen as a nutjob.

DOWD: Well, the good news is, the system is going to work, because
the Republicans, which they can do -- they can nominee anybody they want
-- they nominated somebody that's not qualified, that's probably
incompetent, that has said some crazy stuff. And the -- the great news
is, the Delaware electorate is probably going to send her packing one
more time.

AMANPOUR: Let's raise -- let's put up what Sharron Angle in Nevada
and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said to each other and about
each other during the debate this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REID: We have now almost $2 billion worth of work going on in
Nevada with renewable energy jobs, and that's a result of tax policy,
incentives to have them do that. Harrah's, as a result of language in a
bill there, we've saved 31,000 jobs at Harrah's alone. All these things
I've talked about doing, my opponent is against those. She wouldn't do
that. My job is to create jobs.

ANGLE: Harry Reid, it's not your job to create jobs. It's your job
to create policies that create the confidence for the private sector to
create those jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So where is that race going to end up? I mean, it's
pretty much neck and neck right now.

WILL: Harry Reid -- Harry Reid's challenge has been to get to 45
percent, because he pretty clearly can't get above that. After three
terms representing that state, that's his ceiling. So they've got a
whole bunch of people on the ballot you can vote "none of the above," in
which case your vote doesn't count for anything, but you can't vote for
one of the candidates.

The most remarkable number out there right now, Christiane, is the
fourth -- third quarter fundraising by Sharron Angle, $14.3 million.

AMANPOUR: It's huge.

WILL: I -- I got some facts here. Her filing on this quarter with
the Senate -- report on her earnings, 9,112 pages. It weighs 103
pounds. She got 194 contributors, average contribution $73.

AMANPOUR: So why isn't she further ahead? Why is it so close?

WILL: Well, because, A, it's a swing state right now; B, she's
running against the most powerful senator; C, she's made a lot of
mistakes; D, she wasn't vetted by these people. However, she has the
great Republican narrative this year, which is people say, "Well, these
people are from outside the system," and they say, "Damn right we're
from outside the system. Don't send Washington to fix Washington, the
same people who messed it up."

AMANPOUR: When you say great Republican narrative, I mean, there's
been a long and venerable tradition of conservativism in this country.
You can go back at least to Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, all of
that sort of intellectual conservativism that lasted about 30 years.
And people are saying that right now it's really gone to the extreme,
people are looking at the Tea Party and saying, "This is not
conservativism as we knew it"...

WILL: Which is -- which is...

AMANPOUR: ... "but it's extreme."

WILL: Which is exactly what they said about Bill Buckley and Bill
Buckley's candidate, Barry Goldwater, who is supposedly representing the
paranoid...

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Reagan had moderates on his -- as vice president and in
his cabinet.

MORAN: A different Republican Party. Hard times make anxious
people do extreme things sometimes. If you look at the Tea Party
constitution, if there is such a thing, at Joe Miller in Alaska saying
unemployment compensation is unconstitutional, the emphasis on the 10th
Amendment, which is a very vague amendment which they want returned
power -- power returned to the states, this is going to be a real
challenge for the Republican Party going forward. And it's born of this
anxiety.

DOWD: Well, all movements in this country start out with people on
the extremes. And the success of those movements over time are either
-- are when one of the parties co-opts that movement and the tactics and
the message is then moderated.

It started -- it was Barack Obama who sits in the White House was
the -- was the beneficiary of a very extreme movement that started in --
after the Iraq war, which was very few people were protesting the war.
In the end, that became a majority in this country, and Barack Obama got
elected based upon that movement.

The conservative movement -- Ronald Reagan was not considered a
moderate when he ran against Gerald Ford in 1976. He ran against
moderates. He then ultimately mirrored the country and he got elected.
All movements start out that way.

AMANPOUR: So you think, then, that what they're saying right now is
not going to be what they say if they get elected?

DOWD: No, what I'm saying is, is that if somebody co-opts this
movement, which is an anti-Washington, anti-federal government movement,
and then -- then takes that movement and then puts a brand of politics
on that, that moderates -- and can appeal to younger voters, it will
have a huge amount of success in this country.

AMANPOUR: OK. Well, let me ask you, Meghan McCain...

MCCAIN: It's not possible.

AMANPOUR: ... because -- well, you represent younger voters, and
particularly younger Republican voters. And in your book, you have
talked about the Republican Party, saying that rather than the party of
openness and individual freedom, it's now the party of limited message
and less freedom. Along with ideological narrowness, an important P.R.
battle is being lost. Rather than leading us into the exhilarating
fresh air of liberty, a chorus of voices on the radical right is taking
us to a place of intolerance and anger.

So radical right?

MCCAIN: I wrote this out of personal experience. I know how I'm
vilified on an absolutely daily basis. No matter what the Republican
Party wants to think about this Tea Party movement, it is losing young
voters at a rapid rate. And this isn't going to change unless we start
changing our message.

Maybe we won't care. But I still care...

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: Twenty months ago...

AMANPOUR: She has a point, right? Young voters are the future.

WILL: Well, that's -- that's...

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: Yes, that's tautology, but not -- not...

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: Not a political point. No, 20 months ago the question was,
does the Republican Party have a future? In the last 20 months, we've
had two things happen. A, the Tea Party movement has energized the
Republican Party, and the Democrats are trying to hold onto one house of
Congress right now. I don't think that's the sign of a party that's in
trouble.

DOWD: And I think Meghan's right, but you have to also make the
counterpoint. As Barack Obama won younger voters by 30 points. He as
of right now has a difficulty getting any of those voters to a rally who
have lost -- a great deal are disappointed in what's happened...

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Is that about the economy?

DOWD: I think it's about two things. It's what they thought, like
many people did, that Barack Obama and the Democrats were going to come
to Washington and were going to change things, and they feel like -- in
my view, they feel like it's politics as usual.

So now you have a Republican Party that's gone off on too many
social issues, too many issues that's not in line with the younger
voters. They're very disappointed, and my guess is there's a lot of
younger voters who are totally fed up with both political parties at the
time and are looking for something else.

MCCAIN: Of course. I mean...

WILL: But the Tea Party -- what the Tea Party has done, among other
things, and surely you'd acknowledge this, is they have driven the
Republican Party, pulled it away from the social issues.

MORAN: Because it's an emphasis on the fiscal issues.

WILL: Precisely.

MORAN: And they're co-opting the party, and that -- that is
important. A lot of the money behind the Tea Party is not mom-and-pop
money. It's...

AMANPOUR: It's very wealthy money.

MORAN: It's very wealthy money. People definitely purchasing,
trying to purchase the Tea Party movement. And a lot of those issues --
free trade, the kinds of issues that the Chamber of Commerce and that
some of the other big money behind the Republican Party this year,
trying to co-opt the Tea Party movement -- I'm sure quite how many of
those Tea Party activists would agree with them.

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: ... about this, because, you know, everybody would think
by the -- what they stand for that perhaps business would get behind
them. BusinessWeek -- Bloomberg this week had the following, on the
front, basically, saying that the Tea Party is not trusted by business.
And it says the Tea Party's brand of political nitroglycerin, in short,
is too unstable for businesses that look to government for
predictability, moderation, and the creation of a stable economic
environment.

Whatever you think of the social issues, surely the economy and
business is the big issue right now.

WILL: Business also looks to government for tax subsidies, for
corporate welfare, and the Tea Party movement does, indeed, threaten
that. Bravo the Tea Party movement.

DOWD: Big business wants...

AMANPOUR: Bravo the Tea Party movement?

DOWD: Big business wants predictability. And you're not going to
get predictability from Tea Party candidates in this election. Sharron
Angle and Joe Miller and Christine O'Donnell, who's probably not going
to win, you're not going to get predictability from it.

The thing that's about the Tea Party is, they're not only mad at big
government. They're mad at anything big that feels disconnected from
their lives that people don't feel like -- understand where they are.
And so they don't like big government. They don't like Washington.
See, they also don't like big corporations.

And they should -- the Chamber of Commerce and big business should
fear this movement.

AMANPOUR: Well, let's talk about that, because you've been on the
campaign trail. You interviewed Vice President Biden. You also were in
California with Senator McCain. But Biden and -- and certainly
President Obama have been talking a lot about campaign funding. Let's
just play something that he said to you about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: All these guys, these Republicans, voted against
disclosure. What's wrong with disclosure? Just tell us where the
money's coming from. What's the problem? What is the problem? Why
can't the chamber say, "This is where contributions are coming from"?
Why can't Karl Rove tell us where the contributions are coming from?
Just disclosure. Just tell us where. Show me. Show me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORAN: "Where is the outrage?" Bob Dole once said in a losing
campaign about campaign finance in some ways. And by focusing on
process as they are, by trying to make an issue, they think that they
have struck a populist note that might tap into some of the anxiety
that's out there. But it is off-point in some ways.

DOWD: Yes, I think the problem with this -- it reminds me of
Captain Renault in "Casablanca," when walked in and said, "I'm shocked,
I'm shocked gambling is going on here." These are the same folks that
benefited from secret funds in 2008 and 2006 and in 2004, and the
average American out there thinks both parties do this. They both fund
these things. And why aren't you talking about how many jobs are going
to get created? Why aren't you defending the health care bill that you
passed? Why aren't you doing these things on policies instead of a
process argument?

AMANPOUR: But also, campaign finance reform was something that your
own father took up. And, yes, both sides may have been doing it, but
isn't transparency something that we all are demanding in every -- in
every way? I mean, where is campaign finance reform? Do you think it's
dead?

WILL: Dead.

AMANPOUR: Dead in the water?

WILL: Stake through it.

AMANPOUR: And you don't like it all?

WILL: Absolutely wonderful development this year is -- is the
rolling back...

AMANPOUR: How can that be wonderful for a democracy, I mean, not to
know where all of this money comes from and who's putting it in?

WILL: What -- what you're talking about with the amount of money is
speech. And the question is, do you have to notify the government
before you can speak on politics?

WILL: Well, almost all money in politics is spent on disseminating
political advocacy. That's just a fact. Now, Mr. Biden and -- and the
narrative from the Democrats has been this is secret money that the Koch
brothers are putting into it. Well, get your story straight. Do we not
-- do we know who these guys are? I mean, some of them are about as
anonymous as George Soros.

MORAN: But a lot of them are anonymous. And there is an irony here
that the Chamber of Commerce and others ought to be held accountable
for. At the Supreme Court, when that case came before the Supreme
Court, business interests said, "Take these shackles off us because
disclosure will essentially fix the problem. If the people know where
the money's coming from, that'll be fine."

And right now, there is a problem with transparency. Sunshine is
the best disinfectant.

(CROSSTALK)

MCCAIN: Well, don't you think that Vice President Biden should take
some kind of ownership for the fact that this Tea Party movement is a
direct result of the spending that's going on in his administration?
This movement that everyone's so frustrated with his administration has
made possible, so maybe he should start thinking about that.

AMANPOUR: And let's go, on that note, to a campaign ad by Governor
Manchin of West Virginia, who's running for the Senate. Look at this,
maybe.

OK, we don't have that. But we want to talk about basically he's
running away from the Democratic Party has he tries to run. And today
-- in today's New York Times Magazine, there is a front cover article
about President Obama, and he's talking about what went wrong, what
might go right afterwards. And he basically is saying that it may be
that, regardless of what happens after this election, they -- the
Republicans -- feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as
well as they anticipated and so the strategy of just saying no to
everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work
for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people
are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with
me in a serious way.

Is there any chance of bipartisanship after the election?

DOWD: There's a chance, but I think it's totally incumbent upon the
president of the United States to do that. And it -- after they --
after they won in 2008, the first thing that President Obama did when he
met with the Republicans when they tried to offer compromises and offer
things, he said -- you know what he said? Two words: I won.

And maybe in the aftermath of this election, if he stands up and
says, "I lost," then there might be a chance for bipartisanship.

AMANPOUR: All right. And we're going to be seeing that after the
election in just 16 days from now. But we want to turn actually to our
next big interview, and that's with Maria Shriver. And we're going to
be looking at Alzheimer's and how it's affecting this nation. She's got
the Shriver report out and the compelling link between Alzheimer's and
women.

And I just want to turn to you for these last moments of our
roundtable, because you've had your own very tragic experience with
that. Your mother died. And you've done programs, you've written about it.

MORAN: Yes, my mom was one of millions and millions of people
who've made this hard journey. And just being here with you this
morning, she would have loved this. She loved politics. She loved
baseball. She was a lifelong Cubs fan. And she loved being a mom. She
had 10 kids. I'm the eighth, the sixth of her seven sons.

And we as a family learned what millions and millions of families
have learned, which is that Alzheimer's breaks your heart. What it
attacks is the essence and the core of a person. That has been an
inspiration for me and for many others to fight it.

And I brought a little visual aid. One of the things she did was
needlework throughout her life. She knitted all of us Irish sweaters,
and that's a little piece of needlework, an angel for the top of the
Christmas tree.

And one of the sadder passages of her journey was when she couldn't
do this anymore, when it was basically just a kind of mess in her lap
and then anxious look on her face. We can and must achieve a world
without Alzheimer's.

AMANPOUR: And you yourself did a "Nightline" program on testing
yourself.

MORAN: I did. I got my DNA tested to become part of clinical
trials, to do these kinds of things, just to show that you don't have to
sit there. There is a kind of passivity in the country around
Alzheimer's. It is a hard and sad journey, but there is a fight to be
made, and I believe it can -- it can be defeated.

AMANPOUR: Thank you. And we're going to take this up after the
break. And meantime, the roundtable discussion will continue in the
green room.

And when we come back, we'll talk to those leading the charge
against Alzheimer's. I'll have an exclusive interview with Maria
Shriver about why women are at the center of this disease. We'll be
right back.

AMANPOUR: Welcome to viewers here and around the world. I'm
Christiane Amanpour. And at the top of the news this week, Tea Party
politics in Delaware.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'DONNELL: What we ended up doing was dusting up (ph) the backroom
deals...

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Christine O'Donnell takes on the Republican
establishment, but she's not everyone's cup of tea.

(UNKNOWN): I feel that the girl has no experience.

(UNKNOWN): We need somebody that's standing here (ph) with us.
Christine O'Donnell is most likely one of those type people (ph).

AMANPOUR: In the battle to control the Senate, is this the
Democrats' firewall?

(on-screen): What worries you most about her?

(voice-over): On the campaign trail in Delaware. Exclusive
interviews with Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Christine
O'Donnell. Then, Maria Shriver on a mission.

SHRIVER: When you are dealing with a parent with Alzheimer's, you
yourself feel helpless.

AMANPOUR: Across the country, families battle a silent killer.
This morning, we begin a special ABC series examining the impact of
Alzheimer's on women. Maria Shriver's Woman's Nation takes on
Alzheimer's, only on "This Week."

Plus, mission accomplished. How Chile turned a disaster into a
national triumph, a reporter's notebook from ABC's Jeffrey Kofman, who's
covered the story from the start.

And...

(UNKNOWN): Elections are about the alternative. And we've just got
to keep focusing on what the alternative to (inaudible) would be.

AMANPOUR: In these final weeks, the Democrats closed some of the
gap. That and the rest of the week's politics on our roundtable with
ABC's George Will and Terry Moran, political analyst Matthew Dowd, and
Meghan McCain.

And the Sunday funnies.

LENO: And Vice President Joe Biden told the New York Times this
week that President Obama has asked him to run again in 2012. The bad
news? Nobody asking Obama yet. They're still waiting on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: From all across our world to the heart of our nation's
capital, ABC's "This Week" with Christiane Amanpour starts now.

AMANPOUR: Hello again. And just 16 days until the midterms and
there is a lot of politics to talk about. Our roundtable is here
standing by.

But first, we go on the campaign trail, the Senate race in
Delaware. Christine O'Donnell landed on the national stage just a month
ago when she upset the political order in Delaware and won the
Republican Senate primary. She campaigned as an outsider, a Tea Party
favorite, raising lots of money. But on the very night of her victory,
some in her own party concluded that Delaware was no longer a guaranteed
win for Republicans, and that meant finding another state to win, if
they want to control the Senate, according to the analysts.

And even though O'Donnell is now behind in the polls, Democrats
aren't taking any chances. Vice President Biden...

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): ... Vice President Biden brought the
president to his home state of Delaware to raise money for Democratic
Senate candidate Chris Coons.

OBAMA: And although I think Chris has so far run an extraordinary
race, I don't want anybody here taking this for granted. This is a
tough political environment.

AMANPOUR: Biden held the seat for 36 years.

BIDEN: There's a great, great deal at stake.

AMANPOUR: And Coons told me it's a must-keep for Democrats if they
want to maintain control of the Senate.

COONS: Well, I don't think there's a scenario where the Republican
take control of the United States Senate if I'm successful in this
Senate seat. And I've been told that's a critical strategic concern for
folks who are looking at this race from outside.

AMANPOUR: His opponent, Christine O'Donnell's, surprising
Republican primary victory over nine-term Congressman Mike Castle has
made her an international media magnet, that and her controversial past.

O'DONNELL: I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven.

AMANPOUR: And her ads to dispel it.

O'DONNELL: I'm not a witch.

AMANPOUR: Backed by Sarah Palin, O'Donnell is a Tea Party favorite,
but state and national Republicans are keeping their distance.

O'DONNELL: The state party isn't helping us. And we're asking the
national Republican senatorial to help us. We've got the Democratic
senatorial committee coming after me. We're hoping that the National
Republican Senatorial Committee will help us. But it's two-and-a-half
weeks left, and they're not.

AMANPOUR: Today, Chris Coons is well ahead, where he would likely
have been trailed had he been facing Mike Castle.

(on-screen): Who would have been a stronger and more difficult
opponent?

COONS: Oh, Congressman Castle, absolutely. He's got experience.
He's got years of insight. He was a two-term governor, and he's got the
experience that comes from knowing how to make hard decisions and then
their consequences.

AMANPOUR: So you're glad that it's O'Donnell who won the primary?

COONS: I'm not sure it's good for Delaware or good for Delaware's
voters.

AMANPOUR: Do you, for your campaign?

COONS: Obviously, I went from being significantly down to
significantly up in the polls, so just from an outside-in view, it's a
positive in terms of my chances in the election. But I don't think it's
been positive for Delaware. There's been a huge amount of attention
paid to things that aren't directly connected to what matters to Delaware.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): And Tom Ross, chairman of the state
Republican Party, was clearly agitated when he joined me on "This Week"
just days after O'Donnell won the primary.

(on-screen): You are not a happy man today.

ROSS: I'm not a happy man. We have worked very diligently in a
very difficult environment. I'm the Republican chairman in the
Northeast. My state is vastly Democratic. Most people identify
themselves as a moderate. We had a candidate that was very close to
becoming the next United States senator from Delaware, and essentially
people on our own team clipped him right as he was about to go on the
goal line.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Ross told me O'Donnell's support comes from
Tea Party backers across the country.

ROSS: You know, we're not opposed to Tea Party values. What we're
opposed to is people coming in from out of state and dumping hundreds of
thousands of dollars on candidates that we have not endorsed.

AMANPOUR: O'Donnell may be trailing Coons in the polls, but she's
raised three times more money than he has, $3.8 million in just over a
month.

BIDEN: We want to make sure Chris has the money to continue -- to
finish out this campaign.

AMANPOUR: And as the vice president told "Nightline's" Terry Moran,
that got their attention.

BIDEN: Look, Christine ran against me. I'm the only guy in America
that at the same time ran -- had two opponents, Christine O'Donnell and
Sarah Palin, because I was on the ticket in Delaware as a senator and as
vice president. And I took them both very seriously. We take Christine
O'Donnell seriously.

One of the reasons is, Christine O'Donnell has been able to raise a
great deal of money. There's an awful lot of negative ads she's been
able to put up.

O'DONNELL: We haven't yet taken out a negative ad.

AMANPOUR: Expect, perhaps, this one...

(UNKNOWN): You will hide your lights, because he's taxing
everything out here. Chris Coons is the Taxman.

AMANPOUR: If he's elected, Chris Coons told me tax policy will be a
top priority.

COONS: I would vote to extend the overwhelming majority of the Bush
tax cuts. There's a trillion dollars in private capital sitting on the
sidelines right now in the American economy. All that money is sitting
there waiting for clear signals about health care costs, about where
we're going in tax policy, and what we're going to do to restart this
economy. We have to get these things solved.

O'DONNELL: There's this scare tactic coming from the Democrats
saying that these tax cuts for the rich are these billionaires who are
trying to find places to dock their yachts. That's not it at all. It's
the dry cleaner down the street. It's the pizza shop owner down the
street. It's the hardware store owner.

COONS: She's run for the -- for the United States Senate three
times in five years. That's a lot of persistence.

AMANPOUR (on-screen): And what do you think it's all about?

COONS: I think my grandmother would have said she has a lot of moxie.

AMANPOUR: A good thing?

COONS: I'm not sure why she's running, but that's up for -- that's
up to her to explain.

(UNKNOWN): My husband and I feel that Christine O'Donnell is not
part of the good-old-boy network, and we think she'll bring some fresh
ideas and have the courage to stand up for her convictions and to
represent the people.

AMANPOUR: Most voters are in the northern part of the state. At
the Golden Dove Diner, we spoke to Republican and Tea Party supporter
Linda Conway (ph). But she's casting her vote elsewhere.

(UNKNOWN): I feel that the girl has no experience, and for some
reason, I just have -- that she's almost like a front for someone. And
I just don't feel this young lady has the control and the smarts to get
us out of this jam that we're in at this time. And I feel Coons, with
his experience, does.

AMANPOUR: We then joined these men, whose company rents linens and
uniforms. Like many people across the country, Kenneth Ritoli (ph) told
us that he's frustrated and worried about the future.

(on-screen): Do you feel that your children will have it better
than your generation, the American dream?

(UNKNOWN): I don't -- I don't know. I really -- and I hate to say
that -- I really don't know.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): But all of them told me they see a glimmer
of hope after the darkest days of the recession.

(on-screen): Have you had to lay people off?

(UNKNOWN): We did lay off a few people, but since then, we have
started rehiring, and things are looking up in our business and getting
better.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I wrote in my book that going out that last Thanksgiving,
after George had been elected, but before he was inaugurated governor,
and Daddy -- we were all sitting in the den watching football on
television over Thanksgiving. And Daddy said, "Who's that over there?"
And I said, "That's my husband, Dad. That's George Bush." He said,
"You married George Bush?" And I said, "Yes." And then he laughed and
said, "I think I'll ask him for a loan."

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Funny, but sad, too. Laura Bush reflecting on her
father's experience with Alzheimer's. Harold Welch died in 1995, after
battling the disease for two years. And more than half of all Americans
now know someone with Alzheimer's.

And this morning, we begin a special ABC News series in
collaboration with Maria Shriver and the Alzheimer's Association.
Together, they've produced "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Takes
on Alzheimer's." It's the first to make a compelling connection between
Alzheimer's and women. And in a moment, we'll talk with Maria.

But first, how the disease is impacting ordinary American families.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Every 70 seconds in the United States,
someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and experts warn the country is
ill-prepared for the growing epidemic.

(UNKNOWN): With the coming of the Baby Boomers, turning of age,
starting 2011, almost 80 million of them, we will be seeing a tsunami of
-- an increase in Alzheimer's disease.

AMANPOUR: And women are at the epicenter. They make up two-thirds
of people who have Alzheimer's and of those who care for people with the
disease.

(UNKNOWN): A big part of this has to do with longevity. Women are
still living longer than men.

(UNKNOWN): OK, got to run.

AMANPOUR: Karen Parks (ph) understood her 80-year-old mother losing
her memory, but her world came to a screeching halt when her 56-year-old
husband Jerry was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.

K. PARKS (ph): I could see myself sitting there. I thought to
myself, "Should I be putting my arm around my husband? Am I hearing
this right?" I mean, it just absolutely stops you cold.

AMANPOUR: With his lifelong passion for woodwork and building,
Jerry was at the top of his career as a successful construction
executive, only to be laid off when his memory began to fail.

J. PARKS (ph): I looked at the doctor. I said, "You know, I had
rheumatic fever when I was little kid, and I beat that." And I said,
"I'll beat this one, too." (inaudible) and he said, you know -- he
said, "You really won't."

AMANPOUR: With two of their four children still at home, they were
forced to downsize, and Karen (ph) went back to work as a teacher after
a 20-year absence.

K. PARKS (ph): He was my rock. He was the breadwinner. And I'm
having to take on some of that. I miss the Jerry and Karen (ph) of
before.

J. PARKS (ph): All I hope is that -- that every year that I have
that I can be as productive as I can be. And I want to enjoy life. I
spent a lot of time focusing on the family and friends and doing the
things I want to do.

AMANPOUR: The debilitating disease affects the patient and the
caregiver, who's more likely to become depressed, have an increase in
heart disease, and six times more susceptible to dementia. These women
caregivers suffer at work, too. Many are forced to go part-time or quit
altogether. Karen says, as Jerry's condition worsens, she'll have to
cut back her hours, and she's not sure how she'll afford the medical bills.

According to "The Shriver Report," the United States will spend an
astounding $20 trillion over the next 40 years treating Alzheimer's.
Current treatments only slow the symptoms of patients like Jerry (ph),
who's in a clinical trial, but he and Karen (ph) both hope the
government will provide more resources for families and more funding to
find a cure.

But for now, they say, they enjoy living in the moment.

K. PARKS (ph): It's very hard to see your loved one that you want
to spend forever with losing parts of things and seeing how frustrated
and hurt they feel when they know they can't do something. Jerry (ph)
and I decided that we're going to make the best of this, and he has a
fabulous attitude.

J. PARKS (ph): (inaudible) grieving, I thought, you know, this
gives me a great opportunity. You know, it gives me time to do the
things I want to do. I think for us to be upbeat, you know, raises our
family and our friends up, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And joining me now, Maria Shriver, the first lady of
California. She's the founder of Woman's Nation, which, with the
Alzheimer's Association, produced the report.

Also, Ann O'Leary, executive director of the Berkeley Center on
Health, Economic and Family Security at U.C. Berkeley and an expert on
women and work.

Thank you both for coming in.

SHRIVER: Thank you for having us.

AMANPOUR: So as always with these cases, it's usually a personal
experience that turns you into an activist.

SHRIVER: Exactly.

AMANPOUR: Your father has the disease.

SHRIVER: My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2003. And at
that time, there was very little information about the disease, and
there was a big stigma about it. So like millions of families, we had
to start talking to people, asking questions, finding out what trials
were going on, what medicine to do, who would do the care-giving, and we
started down a very long road that continues to this day.

So it turned me, first, to an author and then to a producer and
today to an activist to try to find a cure, bring attention to this
disease, and reduce some of the stigma and make it in the mainstream.

AMANPOUR: So along with the doctors and along with you, Ann, there
are proposals that you're trying to figure out. You just -- you just
said that it could -- it's like the silent killer. People don't really
want to talk about it.

SHRIVER: Well, what we want to say is also that this affects, as
you said in that report, 60 percent of the people who get it are women.
They're also doing the caretaking. And millions of these women are also
working full-time. And in the polling, we report that they often say we
had to go into work late, we had to change our job to part-time, as that
woman was talking, or leave our job altogether. And the workplace and
the government have not kept up with this change that's going on all
across the country.

O'LEARY: Yeah, this is a -- you know, it's a tremendous burden on
families. We estimate that families are spending $56,000 a year they're
paying out of pocket. We don't have any insurance for this.

One of the great things about the health reform bill is we are going
to start. There's going to be long-term insurance now that's going to
be provided to people through their employers, but there's so much more
we can do to relieve that financial burden.

AMANPOUR: Well, what specifically can be done to help people in the
workplace, for instance, who need to take time to look after their
family members?

O'LEARY: Well, it's interesting. You know, if you look at the
difference between men and women who are having this problem in the
workplace, more often men are saying that they are able to take the
flexibility. Women often drop out of the workplace because they don't
have policies in place to provide flexibility, they don't have policies
in place that says that they can take the leave and they'll get some pay
when they take the leave.

We have no insurance, no paid family leave, no right to request
flexibility in our country. These are things that we need to have a
conversation about and really start working on.

SHRIVER: But I think today employers can go and talk to their
employees and say, "Do you need flexible hours?" And this is
particularly important to women who are in low-paying jobs and don't
have the power. There's a lot of fear in the workplace today to even go
and ask. Many of the people we polled said that they felt more
comfortable asking for help with childcare than with elder care, that
it's not something that employers are comfortable talking about. They
don't really even know how to address it.

AMANPOUR: And isn't the child -- I mean, the childcare act is
potentially -- you're saying there should be some elder care legislated,
as well?

SHRIVER: Yes, to amend the childcare tax aid (ph) so that perhaps
it'd include elder care and pre-tax dollars. There's a lot of things
that need to be amended. The Family Leave Act needs to also be able to
include grandparents, spouses, in-laws that it doesn't cover today.

AMANPOUR: And do you think Congress, the administration, all those
who have to get together to make this a reality can do that any time soon?

O'LEARY: I mean, I think that they're starting the conversation.
They're starting to talk about workplace flexibility. But it has to be
everybody having this conversation and realizing this is just such a
tremendous burden. If we ignore it, the burden is on families. It's on
families who don't have any insurance, they don't have any ability to
pay for these costs. So we have to step up.

AMANPOUR: But it's also -- I mean, the startling figure is that it
could bankrupt the country. I mean, it's $20 trillion, you assess, over
the next 40 years, could be paid treating this disease.

SHRIVER: That's right. And I think that this president could stand
up and say that he understands that this is a national epidemic. They
can -- this Congress right now could go ahead and pass the National
Alzheimer's Project Act. They could do that today, which actually would
put an office in HHS and say this is going to be a priority. We need
coordination. We need a strategy. Families need to know that this
Congress, the city right behind you, is aware of this epidemic, that
it's affecting working men and women.

Two million kids under the age of 18 are caring for loved ones at
home struggling with Alzheimer's. This is already happening. The only
people who are not talking about sit in that building.

AMANPOUR: You must have been talking to them. You must have been
trying to figure out whether there is an appetite to do that.
Apparently, the United States is the only developed country without a
national strategy on this issue.

O'LEARY: And that's exactly right. We need a national strategy.
There is real hope that Congress will pass the National Alzheimer's
Project Act. We really -- that needs to happen. But there needs to be
so much more than that.

There was a really positive step in this health reform bill, but we
need to do much more. I mean, the U.K., for example, allows this right
to request flexibility. You know, one of the women in this report said,
"I'm scared. I'm scared I'm going to get fired. I'm holding on just to
be able to do this. I want to be able to ask for some flexibility, but
I'm too scared to do that." We need that in our country.

SHRIVER: I think what's also really exciting about this is that men
and women can get together on this issue. Women always talked about
getting maternity leave, but everybody has a parent. And I have found,
just in the time when my father was diagnosed to today, so many more
people come up and talk to me about it. They don't whisper as much
about it as they used to. And you see millions of men now stepping up
to care for their mothers or their wives, and there are beautiful essays
in this report which we did with the Alzheimer's Association where men
talk about caring for their mothers and it being the most extraordinary
thing they've ever done in their lives.

AMANPOUR: Terry Moran talking about his case with his mother. And
your own brothers are caring principally for your father.

SHRIVER: I have four brothers, and I write about them. They have
-- I think giving their children a whole new role model, which is the
strong, nurturing man. They take care of my dad, and they're there 24/7.

AMANPOUR: So let's get down to the -- to the real issue. One of
the real issues is funding, resourcing, political, galvanizing, but we
we're talking -- I mean, your own husband, governor of California, has
had to cut back some of these programs because of budget cuts.
Alzheimer's is, by a huge factor, less resourced, less funding than
cancer and other such diseases.

SHRIVER: Yes. And in the Time magazine which has Alzheimer's on
the cover, one of the doctors says that, you know, heart disease and
cancer get $6 billion, $5 billion, and Alzheimer's gets $500 million.
And, in fact, it's going to be Alzheimer's in the next several years
that's going to get those people way before cancer or heart disease.

So, obviously, we need to increase funding. But, you know, in this
climate, that'll probably be difficult. There's a breakthrough act that
asks for $2 billion for research. But I think, once again, this
president could say, "I want to launch" -- just like Kennedy launched
expedition to the moon, he can launch an expedition to the brain.

There are so many secrets in the brain that can uncover the cures
for Alzheimer's, Huntington, Parkinson's, intellectual disabilities, how
we learn, how we love, how we remember. All of this is in the brain.
And why not have something like that in this country to galvanize people
around?

O'LEARY: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that's happening
is we're making these very short-term decisions about how we fund
things. And we're cutting paid caregivers in many of our states because
of these budget crises. But look at what's going to happen on the back
end. If we don't have somebody providing paid care or providing unpaid
care, because they can't take the time off from work, many people will
end up being institutionalized. That is much more expensive, and we
really need to think about those...

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: And what many people ask is, is there a cure or is there
anything like a cure or something on the horizon?

O'LEARY: Well, I think there's -- you know, there's not a cure, but
there's a lot of hope, in terms of the research that's going on. You
know, Time magazine has done this terrific issue today talking about the
research and what's happening. There's a lot we've learned. There's a
lot of hope. And I think Terry Moran's right: We have to have that hope.

But we have to invest in the research. There's so little money
invested in the research.

SHRIVER: And one of the great things to get us hope will be more
people who volunteer for trials. There are lots of trials that are
going on...

(CROSSTALK)

SHRIVER: ... anybody can volunteer for a trial. And the thing that
we've learned in the last kind of six months is that Alzheimer's
develops 15, 20 years before diagnosis. So people need to be aware of
what's going on with their parents, with themselves, and get in early.
That's where the hope is.

AMANPOUR: Now, you -- your term, your husband's term is coming up.
You will not be in the California governor's mansion.

SHRIVER: There isn't a governor's mansion, Christiane.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: What will you -- what will you be doing? Will you
continue to lobby publicly for these kinds of things, even after you're
first lady?

SHRIVER: Well, I'll work on Alzheimer's because I'm passionate
about it. And we have 78 million Baby Boomers who are entering their
60s and entering this prime time, so I think it should be not just me,
but everybody should be concerned about this. But as to what I'm going
to do next, I don't know.

AMANPOUR: And everybody wants to know what Governor Schwarzenegger
is going to do now.

SHRIVER: I don't know. I didn't know that he was going to run, so
I don't know what he's going to do now.

(CROSSTALK)

O'LEARY: ... also connect it to the women's issues, the issues from
last year (ph), which are so critical.

AMANPOUR: Thank you. Thank you both, Maria.

(CROSSTALK)

SHRIVER: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And thank you so much for being here to discuss this.

And you can find out more about Women's Nation, Alzheimer's, and
this groundbreaking report on our website at abcnews.com/this week.

Coming up next, "In Memoriam," a reporter's notebook, also, from
Chile, and the Sunday funnies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: It was a remarkable week in Chile. And when we come
back, a report from our reporter on the ground and our picture this week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Chile's president, Sebastian Pinero, got a rock star
welcome in London this weekend and a last-minute invitation to meet with
the queen because of the successful rescue of the miners. It's one of
those rare stories that gripped the globe, and ABC's Jeffrey Kofman, who
reported on every development of the story, brings us his reporter's
notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOFMAN (voice-over): They went into the mine as 33 anonymous
laborers. They emerged as superstars. It was the rarest of media
moments, the entire world putting politics, religion, and nationalism
aside, cheering them on, and they went home to a hero's welcome.

This was their moment. But it was also their country's moment.
Make no mistake: 33 working men are alive today because Chile's
billionaire, politically conservative president, Sebastian Pinera, made
their survival his government's priority. He overruled advisers who
warned he would pay a huge price for failure.

I arrived in Chile on August 23rd, just 24 hours after the men were
found alive. No one knew how they'd be rescued. Yet when I met Chile's
mining minister that night, he already had a plan.

(UNKNOWN): We had planned a whole support system for food, for
psychological health, et cetera. So we are going to keep them alive and
in good shape.

KOFMAN: And they did, inventing a delivery system to send food and
supplies through an impossibly narrow access hole, hooking up fresh
water, electricity, even TV for the men entombed half a mile underground.

I watched as the very poor, very loyal families of the miners
cheered an endless caravan of drills and rescue equipment descending on
this remote desert moonscape. These people couldn't remember when
government had ever done anything for them before.

The so-called Plan B drill that ultimately succeeded was made in the
U.S., flown in by cargo jet from western Australia, with drill bits from
Ireland. The American operator was rushed here from Afghanistan. NASA
came to consult and was astonished.

(UNKNOWN): That will not only be a case study in medicine and a
case study in mining, but a case study in business, as well. They were
very innovative.

KOFMAN: And with cameras broadcasting it to the world live this
week, it was executed flawlessly

(on-screen): On a continent infamous for bureaucracy, corruption,
and nepotism, Chile, already the most advanced country in Latin America,
has rebranded itself as the little country that could.

For "This Week," I'm Jeffrey Kofman, ABC News in Copiapo, Chile.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: From disaster to triumph. And we leave you with our
picture this week, 33 miners seated with President Pinera, a sign of
unity and hope.